Doctors Influenced By Mention Of Drug Ads
by Shankar Vedantam & Marc Kaufman, Washington Post
Offbeat Study Links Brand to Diagnosis
Actors
pretending to be patients with symptoms of stress and fatigue were five
times as likely to walk out of doctors' offices with a prescription
when they mentioned seeing an ad for the heavily promoted
antidepressant Paxil, according an unusual study being published today.
The
study employed an elaborate ruse – sending actors with fake symptoms
into 152 doctors' offices to see whether they would get prescriptions.
Most who did not report symptoms of depression were not given
medications, but when they asked for Paxil, 55 percent were given
prescriptions, and 50 percent were diagnosed with depression.
The
study adds fuel to the growing controversy over the estimated $4
billion a year the drug industry spends on such advertising. Many
public health advocates have long complained about ads showing happy
people whose lives were changed by a drug, and now voices in Congress,
the Food and Drug Administration and even the pharmaceutical industry
are asking whether things have gone too far.
Nearly every industrialized country bans such advertising, and physicians said the new study raises new questions.
(Read the complete article here.)
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